


Nicht Gefärbt

by HolmesianDeduction



Category: Elisabeth - Levay/Kunze
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Der Tod - Freeform, Gen, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Mother-Son Relationship, Supernatural Elements
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-16
Updated: 2014-03-16
Packaged: 2018-01-15 23:01:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 591
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1322491
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HolmesianDeduction/pseuds/HolmesianDeduction
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rudolf had been a dark haired child - Elisabeth remembered that with certainty, and the change in her son's appearance over the years sends her chasing all the wrong spectres.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>[Largely inspired by a discussion I had at 6am about a performance from the most recent Vienna production in which young Rudolf is dark haired, and adult Rudolf is portrayed by the very pale, white-blond Anton Zetterholm.  Said discussion had me saying "Okay, ignoring the realities of casting and staging and how things don't always match up, let's explain this as something within the story world," largely because you can't let playwrights do anything - we always have to mess with things.]</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nicht Gefärbt

             He had been a dark-haired child, she remembered that clearly. He had been fair-skinned and frail like his mother, with his father’s quiet expressiveness, and the dark, chestnut hair of both parents.

             That had been nearly eighteen years ago, and when she next saw her son, he was not the boy that had been taken from her years before; who she had tried and failed to liberate from the claws of the court. He was tall and handsome, but then she had always known that he would be that.

             It was more than that, he was _white_.

             When she had next seen him, she had nearly fainted at the sight of the fine-boned, porcelain face and the swoop of white blond hair that crowned his head as he stood quietly in the corner of the study.

             Indeed, all that remained of the child she had known were the peculiar gentleness of his eyes and the stubborn loyalty he had always displayed towards his mother. Even so, he was unnerving – there was something wild and pained behind his eyes, like the unbroken colts back home, something that felt uncomfortably familiar and did very little to calm her nerves or distract from the haunting premonition of hands closing around her throat.

             She barely heard the words that left his mouth, her gaze rooted instead to the ghostly figure standing behind her in the mirror. It wasn’t until his voice wavered, his carefully held composure threatening to break, that she turned to face the spectre head on.

             Almost immediately, he took a hesitant step forward, hand outstretched, and instinctively, she flinched away, only to pause when the expected look of bemused annoyance failed to appear and she was instead greeted by one of hurt and confusion, and as he next spoke, his voice cracked under the weight of his words, lips twisting in despair.

             She refused to look directly at him after that; refused to let her eyes rest on the wringing white hands that only broke away from one another to ruffle through the pale plumage of his hair every now and again. Even so, she felt the pleading eyes on her back, and the icy grip of hands, half-imagined, on her throat, and she was unable to suppress a shudder.

             When she turned on him a second time, it was he who flinched – nearly imperceptibly, but all the same – as if half-expecting a blow. Still, something akin to hope seemed to rise in him, only to flicker and die as her voice cut through the air between them.

             She hardly noticed his retreating footsteps behind her, let alone the brush of cold air near her face as his steps faded into nothingness.

 

             When next she saw him, he was whiter still, no amount of morticians’ blush able to hide the pallor of his skin, and they had been unable to scrub all traces of blood from his hair, leaving behind the faintest hints of rust that pressed her teeth into her bottom lip and drew her eyes to his own lips, which rested pensively and slightly discoloured by faint bruising. It was this last detail that forced her gaze suddenly skyward, stricken with the terrible notion that somehow, something had changed, and it took only the barest touch of cool air against her neck and the ghost of a chuckle, like leaves rustling in the wind, in her ear, for her to find her face suddenly wet, though she didn’t remember weeping, and a painful sort of numbness creeping into her chest.


End file.
